BUFFALO (WBEN) - In light of the report released by New York Attorney General Letitia James Thursday morning, State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt is calling on State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker to resign.
"There's no way he has the full confidence to lead the health department through the rest of this crisis," said Ortt.
According to the report, a larger number of nursing home residents died from COVID-19 than the New York State Department of Health's published nursing home data reflected and may have been undercounted by as much as 50 percent.
"That's not a missed data point; that's not an error - it is a deliberative attempt to mislead the population, the people of New York State," said Ortt. "A lack of compliance with infection-controlled protocols, insufficient amounts of PPE, sending people who were COVID positive into nursing homes, a directive that came from the governor - they tried to say that wasn't the case, but this report clearly says that had an impact on the amount of deaths we saw in these nursing homes.
"For all those reasons, as well as others, I have called on, and my conference stands with me, I'm calling for the resignation, immediately, of Commissioner Howard Zucker," Ortt continued. "He is the face of the Department of Health; he is out there in all of the public commercials, encouraging people to get the vaccine - how can he lead when we have this report that shows he lied to the people of New York."
